John Cartwright

John Cartwright is multidisciplinary intermedia dance artist and educator. He holds an M.F.A. in Dance with a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Fine Arts from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Dance and Arts Administration from Butler University.

Cartwright is a member of 8 out of 8 Artist Collective, a collaborative experimental performance group co-founded by the members of his M.F.A. cohort, and the co-founder of For Me, For You, a creative-making partnership with interdisciplinary artist Elizabeth Sugawara.

In his previous professional career, Cartwright performed and choreographed for the Louisville Ballet, Thodos Dance Chicago and Chicago Repertory Ballet, as well as performing as a guest artist with several Chicagoland companies. His work has been presented in Chicago, Louisville, Columbus and across the nation in touring productions and educational shows.

As an educator, Cartwright centers his work on expanding students’ understanding of dance’s technical, performative, historical and theoretical elements. Previously, he was the faculty head of the secondary program for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Youth Dance Program, co-artistic director of Thodos Dance Chicago’s Youth Ensemble and a dance instructor at several Chicagoland studios. Most recently, he was a graduate teaching associate at The Ohio State University specializing in ballet, contemporary, jazz and composition. In the summer, Cartwright is the dance composition faculty at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, a summer residency program for high school juniors and seniors hosted at the University of Kentucky.

Currently, Cartwright is a faculty member at Texas A&M University, serving in the role of lecturer for the Dance Science program in the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. Over the years Cartwright has worked with students of all ages ranging from youth programs to open classes for seniors. He has learned that while all bodies move differently, the lessons learned from dance are continuously emergent and unfolding.